"You're too tall to be a penguin" is something my older brother used to say to me... I don't think it means anything, but it just one of those things that we use...... Kinda like this blog: It doesn't really mean anything. Just me.

December 06, 2005

I saw Narnia Tuesday evening..... It's meetsNeverending Story Lord of the Rings. Extreamly well done and beautifully filmed. I didn't like the ending, but hey....I don't usually like the endings of these types of movies. On a scale from one to ten, this was a strong 8.The audience, however, was a different story. At every movie theater experience I am witness to, I always scan the audience and see what kinds of people are there. This particiular movie has been celebrated by many Christian groups for it's..... well, I don't really know why they think it fits their cause. Anyways, this particular audience suprised me because they weren't what I was expecting. In the row in front of me sat big mama Cass, her 12 brat children, and her HUGE redneck boyfriend/husband. They brought caprisons, potato chips and food for their entire family. Oh, and they were very noisey, crass, and trailer-trashy the entire time. Moving on to my row, I sat next to Anne. She could be described as "nearing retirement" and fancies herself as a modern woman of wealth. She made a point to laugh, ever so annoyingly at any little thing (as to attract attention to herself). Then when her daughter told her about Kohls Department store, Anne wanted her daughter me meet her tomorrow morning so they could shop together. OK, nothing strange, right? Well, the daughter kept saying "I'm busy, I'm booked"....but Anne didn't hear any of it, she just kept suggesting earlier times until they were to meet at 6am. Oh, then Anne would say "I just have to be finished by 10 because I'm going to a Christmas Party" (She was very proud of her little party.... again attracting attention to herself.... loudly..... so everybody could hear). When her daughter still declined, Anne called Bob..... Apparently Bob doesn't know Anne very well because she had to introduce herself over the phone. She proceeded to ask Bob for a "favor"....... Would HE go with her to Kohls tomorrow because he was a senior and could get her a discount. Bob must have declined, so Anne persisted.....Anne finally told him to call back if he preferred the early morning OR the evening (I have a feeling Bob would rather go to the dentist)....however, She reminded Bob that anything around 10 was bad for her because of her Christmas Party. Now, I never got a look at the people behind me.... but I don't think they EVER brushed their teeth. We're talking big-time Stank breath. I was expecting an audience of successful Christian church-goers. It turned out to be more of the trailer park variety.

Going back to the religous aspect of the movie. I never want to hear the Christian groups poo poo Harry Potter EVER again. There was so much more witchcraft and fantasy and evil etc, than you could ever accuse Harry of doing.

December 03, 2005

It's all over, the results are in. "The Bet" made months ago that it would snow in Manhattan before December seems to have ended in Scott's favor (see screen shot of the weather channel for proof). I don't know if Mark realizes it snowed several feet overnight and melted before morning.... in fact, he probably didn't even see any of it. Oh well, there's always next year.

OK, so Christmas is around the corner. It's the best holiday of the year, WHAHOO!! We've got the Holiday music playin', and people being all nice to each other (or not), and merriment spread all over the place.... ALL leading up to the big night was Santa comes to your house with lots of presents for you (oh and Jesus get's another year older too). Everybody knows it's Christmas season..... all humans that is.

What about the other members of the animal kingdom? Do you think they have any celbrations or holidays that they get excited about? I guess the first time it gets cold or warm would be a big day for any creature, but what about birthdays, anniversaries, weddins' and the such? Animals couldn't give a flyin' flip about our celebrations.

November 21, 2005

- Yeah, I'd like an Xbox 360, but ain't no way I use it enough to justify the $400 price tag.- Took the Florida teacher Technology Inventory test (FL wants to see how techie its teachers are). I got 100% on 5 sections of the test, but the last one (Ethics, Copywrong, etc), I missed a question...........oh well, I'm not bitter (yes I am).- Who made up the Thanksgiving menu? The pilgrims didn't eat any of the stuff we call "traditional Thanksgiving" food. Instead they ate Fish, berries, watercress, lobster, dried fruits, clams, venison, plums, and ducks. Flour was rare and potatoes were still considered "poisonous".- I love 2 day workweeks. We should have them more often :-)- Decorated for Christmas at my apartment yesterday. I'm so happy with my decorations, but refuse to turn on any lights are displays until after Thanksgiving (actually, In my mind Christmas season starts as soon as Santa concludes the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade)- Why do teachers need to be "nice" or "accomodating" to stupid parents? It's not our fault that their kids have more braincells than they do. Of course, we would never call a child dumb because they are still learning, but let's face it......once you reach adulthood, one could make so resonable conclusions about a person's intelligence. (I know I know, breathe in....breathe out, it's only a job).- Word of the day: BerGeepers (he scared the berGeepers out of me)- Tomorrow is Mrs. White's birthday..... should be fun... mostly because she likes to make a "big deal" out of her own birthday. People that brush off their own birthdays ruin the event for everybody else who would like to do something "nice" for that person. (Warning - I'm not giving a greenlight for people to "go overboard" here.... just express an interest).

November 19, 2005

Oh yeah, This one was GREAT!!!!! The Potter movies have never really gripped me before; I always felt they were too long or dull. This movie, however, is the exception! Action packed, funny, scary.....It couldn't be long enough!!!! The new director is fantastic: Great lighting, flow, special effects, sound.....It's a total package.

Some things that struck me:- The trio are getting really old.... especially the guys. They're really bulking up. Herminoe is a hotty (always has been).- Dumbledore seems a bit out of character. In the first two movies his speech was hallowed and succint. In Goblet, however, he was forceful and almost confused.... Like he wasn't in control of the situation.- I want to play in the Quidditch World Cup.... Looked like SO MUCH FUN!!!!

November 17, 2005

Went back to tompUSA today and bought a laptop. The guy was really starting to get on my nerves."Do you want the service plan?" NO!"It's good for service....... NO THANK YOU"What about any of the other FREE things?" I COULD USE A PRINTER IF IT"S FREE"Yes, a printer and Norton Firewall, and Disk Doctor...and.....NO, JUST A PRINTER PLEASE"You'll want the service plan....." NO, I"M NOT GOING TO PAY FOR IT"Yes, you'll need it.... I'll just bring it up to the cashier" DID YOU HEAR WHAT I SAID! I DON"T WANT IT!Anyways.... I was about to tell this guy exactly where he could stick his "service plan", but I had my school shirt on so I didn't want to tarnish my school's good name.

Then the rebates started coming....... all 7 of them. Each printed on 4 feet of reciept ribbon. Each with it's own requirements, mailing address, and hoops to jump through. I'm not looking forward to filling them out and have found out that I'm not even eligible for one of them because I didn't get a digital camera. Why can't they make rebates EASY? I think STAPLES is my new favorite store because they have a system called (drum roll please.........) EASY REBATE! You just go online, type in your reciept number and it does your rebate stuff....

....for now though, I'll trudge through my 24 feet of rebate ribbon, and try to find out which one is going to get THE ORIGINAL UPC instead of the copies.

November 15, 2005

In tech, it isn't who you know, it's what you know. I don't fancy myself much of a techie, however, in the education world where overhead projectors are still considered "cutting edge" equipment, I am futuristic. So several times a week I have teachers come up to me with the same opening line "I have a question, but it's personal" (the first couple times I heard this line, I was like..... what? What kind of personal questions could they want from me). Then I find out later that they need technology advice.This week I had a teacher ask me what an "M-something" was and if I'd recommend it for her son for Christmas. Huh? M-something? She continued "It plays songs". OH, MP3 players.... of course.... where was my head? At this point I know exactly what she's talking about and I have tons of expertise in this area. But where do you begin? Does she know the difference between Ipods and other MP3 players? How do you explain how to download music? Is her son going to rip his own CD collection? All of these questions flew right over her head..... AND she lost interest in the whole idea. There goes another young man's Christmas hopes down the drain because their mom talked to me :-(I also had another teacher, also very tech challenged, come up and ask if I would help her buy a laptop for her son's Christmas present. He's going off to college and she has 1000 - 1200 to spend. GREAT! Now I have images of her son killing me if I suggest anything but a $1200 computer.... but was does he value? Big screen? Big Hard drive? How about a favorite brand or asthetic features? Who am I to buy this laptop for her son? ...... at least I thought that way until today.......I spent last night poring over the Black Friday ads that were leaked on the internet. I already know what doorbuster deals are out there and have plenty of time to shop for features. Upon surfing the net, I found that the laptop I was considering is on sale NOW for the same price as the Black Friday price. Upon checking with this teacher, it's a GREEN LIGHT!!! I'm off to go buy it. I get to the store and there are TWO simlar models for the exact same price. Oh crap, now I have to decide: Does her son what a small widescreen that can burn DVDs or a Larger regular screen with no burning? I decide to go with the bigger screen. "Do you want us to check it for you for $19" the clerk asks? "NOPE", "Do you want the extended warranty?" the clerk asks "NOPE". Then the peer pressure starts and they tell you all the horrible things that are going to happen if you don't get the service plan..... and I think...... NOW I KNOW why she needed me to buy this thing for her. And there is NO POSSIBLE WAY I can go wrong with my decisions because anything would be better than this teacher being thrown to the techie sharks.

November 11, 2005

So there I was.... in the shower. I had just finished putting some conditioner in my hair and was in the process of using my body wash and "puff". I lathered up basically everything when all of the sudden the water stopped.....

.... Nothing... not even a trickle. I stood there with sudds in my ears and eyes waiting for the water to come back on, but it didn't. After a couple minutes of wishful thinking, I started wiping the soap off my body with my hands and reached for a towel. Thoughts raced through my head: Did I pay my rent and water bill? Yep. Maybe the office messed up and didn't forward my water payment. OR maybe my pipes broke and my dishwasher is spewing water all over my kitchen.... who knows. I toweled off what I could and put on some clothes, marching to the office to find out what happened. Turns out they were already fielding calls from other angry residents who are waterless.

"Any idea when I can wash the soap and shampoo off my hair?" "They said soon." "What happened?" "The city has shut down the water line to our area to fix damage caused by hurricane Wilma.... should be up soon."

GREAT!!! So as I sit here typing this morning..... I have conditioner in my hair and my skin smells like body wash. If the water doesn't come back on soon I either go swimming at the community pool or microwave my britta water and rinse my head the "ol fasion way".

I hate ceremonies. Too much protocol and pomp for my taste. They tend to miss the meanings they were created for. Weddings, graduations, and church cermonies tend to get more elaborate and extravagant all the time, yet these extra frills don't add significance to the event. A big wedding is more significant than a small one.

Each year at this time, my school puts on a HUGE cermony for Veterans day. We're talking the whole nine yards here: Chorus singers, honor guard, hundreds of veterans, doves, bagpipers, bugler, poetry reading, etc, etc, etc. It all starts about 2 weeks out.... at least my involvment anyway. Every day on the morning news we have to stop and honor the "treasures" that little Johnny brought in to show the school (it's fine here and there, but you should see the lines form to get on the news each morning.... you'd think it was the TODAY show). Next comes the scanning. After we beg for each student to bring in pictures of their vet, I get to scan it in the computer. Some pictures get submitted EVERY DAY (grrrrrrr), other students submit their entire family tree. Needless to say it takes me hours each day. Then comes the "Wall of Stars". Again I'm charged with collecting names and information about every veteran that our students know so that we can put their name on a star for our hallway. Most students submit 3 or 4 names, but some submit 15 - 20. It's like doing our entire school's geneology. Add duplicate pictures and names to the mix and you can see how it all adds up.

OK, I'm not even going to talk about the tribute projects that I've helped with, or serving lunch to the veterans, or the logistics of setting up the stage, risers, mics and audio. Bottom line it's a lot of work.Now, somewhere around 30 minutes into the program, I start saying to myself "OK, that's long enough". Once that voice in my head starts....it doesn't shut up. Every minute that goes by after that turns sour. The sun beats down a little harder, the kindergarteners lose interest and start "playing", the guest speaker starts talking about...... well, who knows.... we've all checked out (Vets tend to talk WAY above comprehension level of elementary school children). Waiting for the finish line, I think back to the weeks of scanning, and panning I've done.....

.... Did we really need all this to honor our Veterans? Hell NO!! Short and sweet would have been so much better. After all, how many moments of silence should there be in one ceremony?